Literary Bits for September 27

 

Thoughts on writing from authors born September 27:

 

from literary critic and poet William Empson (Seven Types of Ambiguity) (1906-1984):

The central function of imaginative literature is to make you realize that other people act on moral convictions different from your own.

Thus a poetical word is a thing conceived in itself and includes all its meanings; a prosaic word is flat and useful and might have been used differently.

...the machinations of ambiguity are among the very roots of poetry.

Poetry contains nothing haphazard.

To produce pure proletarian art the artist must be at one with the worker; this is impossible, not for political reasons, but because the artist never is at one with any public.

 

from historian and novelist Louis Auchincloss (The House of Five Talents, Portrait in Brownstone, East Side Story) (1917-2010):

To most readers the word 'fiction' is an utter fraud. They are entirely convinced that each character has an exact counterpart in real life and that any small discrepancy with that counterpart is a simple error on the author's part. Consequently, they are totally at a loss if anything essential is altered. Make Abraham Lincoln a dentist, put the Gettysburg Address on his tongue, and nobody will recognize it.

Novels must have verisimilitude, and truth has little enough of that.

A neurotic can perfectly well be a literary genius, but his greatest danger is always that he will not recognize when he is dull.

Once somebody's aware of a plot, it's like a bone sticking out. If it breaks through the skin, it's very ugly.

It's very rare that a character comes to mind complete in himself. He needs additional traits that I often pick from actual people. One way you can cover your tracks is to change the sex.

Society matters not so much. Words are everything.

I think Shakespeare got drunk after he finished King Lear. That he had a ball writing it.

 

from cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker (The Denial of Death) (1924-1974):

The road to creativity passes so close to the madhouse and often detours or ends there.

The key to the creative type is that he is separated out of the common pool of shared meanings. There is something in his life experience that makes him take in the world as a problem; as a result he has to make personal sense out of it.

 

from novelist Josef Škvorecký (The Cowards, The Miracle Game, The Engineer of Human Souls) (1924-2012):

Whatever happens, we’ll all meet in that great card-index in the sky.

The alchemy of time transforms everything into comedy. Everything. Even crucifixion.

Artists hold out the mirror to the bruises on the face of the world.

 

from sportswriter and best-selling author Dick Schaap (Instant Replay) (1934-2001):

I came up with new leads for game stories by being observant and clever, by using the many gifts of the English language to intrigue and hook a reader.

I think my mistakes were kind of common—leaning on cliches and adjectives in the place of clear, vivid writing. But at least I knew how to spell, which seems to be a rarity these days.

Also, I am driven by a wonderful muse called alimony.

 

from poet and author Carol Lynn Pearson (Goodbye, I Love You) (1939-   ):

There's an old Jewish saying: An enemy is someone whose story you do not know.

 

from romance writer Katie Fforde (Living Dangerously, Love Letters) (1952-   ):

My best advice for aspiring writers is to read a lot and write. Don't worry if you don't get your first, fifth or tenth novel published, if you keep going you'll make it. Also read "how to write" books as they may make the process a bit quicker.

What I like most about the stories I write is exploring other lives and professions. It's a way of having all the jobs I can't have now. I can also give myself skills I don't have.

 

from novelist, playwright, and short story writer Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting, Marabou Stork Nightmares) (1958-   ):

I grew up in a place where everybody was a storyteller, but nobody wrote. It was that kind of Celtic, storytelling tradition: everybody would have a story at the pub or at parties, even at the clubs and raves.

The first job of a writer is to be honest.

Sometimes I work purely 8-12 shifts, banging stuff into the computer. Other times, my office is like a scene from a detective movie, with Post-it Notes, plans, photographs all stuck on the walls and arrows going everywhere, and it's 4 A.M.

There is a kind of mysticism to writing.

I enjoy the freedom of the blank page.

 

from humorist Tucker Max (I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell) (1975- ):

Most of my success, I feel, comes from being a good editor as opposed to a great writer.